Although, there are many good prepackaged resource books, cards, and workshops on affirmations. It is my belief that creating one’s own affirmations is a superior process because the individual can tailor the affirmation to personal circumstance and needs.
Louise L. Hay is a world-renowned teacher of affirmations. Many have used her techniques, positive philosophy and positive affirmations to get what they want in life and for more wellness in the body, mind, and spirit. Her first book Heal Your Body, 1976, discusses the connection between the mind and body and contains many affirmations.
Do affirmations work? Yes, they do. Like self-hypnosis, the affirmation restructures your thought patterns. (Hypnosis is a psychological state marked by a level of awareness different from the ordinary conscious state. It is an altered mental state, or may be used for imaginative role-enactment.) Learning to use an altered state (as in a state of self-hypnosis) when repeating an affirmation allows the affirmation to restructure our thought patterns in the subconscious aspect of mind.
According to C. G. Jung, “… in addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature…. there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited.” The collective unconscious is an inherited, current, and shared connection transcending time and space. We use this transcendent connection to our human peers consciously and unconsciously. This connection explains our sudden awareness of a distant (location) loved one’s passing, injury or problems.
Our connection to the collective unconscious is the hub of the sixth sense. The sixth sense is often called extrasensory perception or ESP. ESP includes the receiving of information perceived through the mind and not through the recognized physical senses.
Affirmations are a method of utilizing our sixth sense. They should always be created with a positive intent. Intention is the specific purpose for performing the active process of affirmation. One must keep the mental and emotional intent positive to avoid unanticipated, or unintended consequences.
Life is only random if we choose to live randomly. Intention and affirmation are mental energies that put us into life’s flowing pattern in the right place. The right place may not be the easy place but it is the best place for growth. Intentional behavior can also be just thoughtful and deliberate goal-directedness.
There are basic steps when creating an affirmation. Remember to say your affirmation 3 times in a row as a set. Continue to work with the affirmation over time until you feel or see it manifest. Be sure to look for the affirmation manifesting in your life. You may need to revise or refine your affirmation. If you design an affirmation of change allow the change to occur.
How to create an affirmation
1. Identify what you want to change.
2. Identify and commit to your outcome or result.
3. Create a short concise proactive sentence this is the affirmation statement.
4. Say your affirmation statement with an attitude of positive, empowered will.
5. Say the same affirmation again with an attitude of belief---this will happen (put behind it the full force of your personality and belief system.
6. The third time you say your affirmation say it with an attitude of gratefulness--thanksgiving affirming that this intention is manifesting for good.
Try this quick and easy affirmation (my personal favorite): I will be in the right place at the right time to be a totally positive and effective person in my own life and in my contribution to humanity at this time. (Repeat three times with intention, belief, and gratitude) Add Thank you! After the third repetition. Please do take the time to look for the positive result in your life.
This affirmation reveals the individual as self-responsible and ready to contribute to the wellbeing of All. The result is to connect with the flow of human energy and be drawn to those individuals to whom we can be of service, or who will be of service to us.
The affirmation process is slower when you work alone in the process. Change is always faster when working in a group or dyad (you and a therapist, or priest, or friend.) Perhaps you can start an affirmation group where individuals bring a personal affirmation to empower, or the group can create affirmations for social change.
According to self-help author Louise Hay and many holistic healers, the mind and body are connected. Illnesses of the body are rooted in the emotional and spiritual aspects of the mind’s beliefs and thought processes. Hay's approach is to identify and resolve the mental root causes of disease. Stress and unhealthy thought patterns can be changed though the process of affirmation. Hay lists numerous illnesses and the emotional thought patterns that tend to cause them in her book, Heal Your Body.
Hay’s book can be a wonderful resource. But it is much more powerful to create affirmations based on your understanding of your own needs and thoughts patterns.
According to the Louise Hay website:
An affirmation is a positive statement you say or think about yourself. Saying daily affirmations helps reprogram our negative self-talk so we can manifest more positive thinking, feeling and experiences in our lives.
According to Remez Sasson and Dorina Sasson, authors of the e-book Affirmations Words with Power, affirmation thoughts gain strength by repetition and exert pressure on the creative power of the universal mind. Your thoughts are inseparable from universal mind. (Jung calls this the collective unconscious.)
Sasson states: thoughts, actions, and events are connected with each other and affect each other. The repetition of an affirmation creates vibrations, energy patterns, within the universal mind. (Remember: the brain/mind is powered by energy, stores information as electrical energy, and transmits energy that can be measured on an encephalograph. This is the interaction point of mind, body and Spirit.)
We can create an affirmation that attracts to us the right people at the right time who are appropriate to our needs. By broadcasting our thoughts, desires and ambitions to the universal mind the benevolent universal mind responds by creating the needed circumstance.
My thoughts have been caught up with what's happening in the Ukraine, and in Iraq and Syria, and western Africa with the Ebola virus. Also with what is happening in a near by city where there have been protests about the militarization of local police and how this militarization can lead to police over-reacting and violating citizens rights and freedoms.
I am not a geo-politician, historian, or medical aide worker. However, I can and do create positive affirmations for the healing of issues I care about. I do not claim to know the perfect answer to anything---therefore I am careful about what I affirm (no personal attacks—my affirmations tend to center on healing. After all, the person whose soul is healed has no reason to harm anyone else). I do know God is good and when we affirm good God hears and responds. When we affirm bad, or evil, it will likely turn on us because God is only good.
There are many other books about affirmations available on Amazon.
Remez Sasson and Dorina Sasson’s e-book Affirmations Words with Power is available at: http://www.successconsciousness.com
http://www.healyourlife.com/articles/topic/4/Affirmations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can_Heal_Your_Life
